


which then turned into a quiet word

by meggannn



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggannn/pseuds/meggannn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leliana is to be Divine, and Surana is still lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	which then turned into a quiet word

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Sam](http://leliaana.tumblr.com), using their Talaya Surana (she/her) and Lavellan (they/them).
> 
> This is my first DA fic, so I'm very sorry if this is completely wrong in terms of Thedosian lore/politics haha. And I haven’t actually played DA3 yet ~~so I really picked the exact wrong prompt to fill for my friend but ah well.~~

She’d stopped writing after reaching the Anderfels.

Leliana assigns it to travel, to exhaustion, to busyness. Talaya has never been particularly loquacious, and she learned early into their acquaintanceship that it translated to penmanship as well. Out of respect for her (impossible, dangerous, idealistic, incredibly courageous) quest, Leliana has refrained herself from sending scouts to keep an eye on the mission, though she hears the occasional rumor – the last had involved a lone, haggard traveler heading northwest, into the Wandering Hills. A one-night stop at a small Tallo inn, arrived late in the evening. A quiet individual with a staff. Some bandages requested, immediately sent to the room with a healer. Gone before dawn, royals left in a neat stack on the nightstand. Six weeks since.

She’s managed without Leliana before, and she can manage again. It’s not as though she isn’t busy herself.

“Given the unorthodox nature of your ascension and circumstances surrounding your election, I highly suggest reconsidering the – Most Holy?”

Mother Giselle. 56 years old. Given to the Chantry life and service at the age of 6. Left-handed. Unmarried. Has expressed anti-Tevinter, -mage, and -elf sentiment in personal discussion, though not politically motivated. And, from what she’s been able to parse over the past year from Leliana’s pointed comments about her partner, decidedly unsympathetic to the ties of her personal romantic life, no matter her assurances otherwise. “Yes, Reverend Mother?”

“You seem rather preoccupied, ma cherie.”

“De rein. I am well.”

“Leliana,” Lavellan’s voice spoke from across the room. They were curled up barefoot on the table, flipping through old Andrastian texts and historical Chantry indoctrination records – more than likely glancing through them looking for interesting images and factoids than performing any actual research on her upcoming coronation as they’d claimed. “You need to decide what you’re going to say to the other Clerics about the Warden.”

“I have already decided what I will say. I needn’t practice my lines.”

“Yes, well, Giselle wants you to  _re_ decide. As in, she wants you to cut it out of your speech altogether at the group icebreakers.”

Mother Giselle looked affronted. “Inquisitor, you presume my intentions before I have the opportunity to give voice to them.”

“I have a good guess. Was I wrong?”

“I only aim to – ”

“Mother Giselle,” Leliana said in monotone, mind still on the last letter she’d received, now in her left pocket, itching to pull it out and reread, press close, trace the lines of her handwriting. “I have interacted with your sentiment often enough to recognize what is not being said. I understand your concerns, but I will politely but firmly put my foot down. If I am to be Divine, the Sunburst Throne will seat the sister I am, not the one others may wish to see. The Warden is a part of who I am. Unless you have objections about a character like the Hero of Ferelden having a personal investment in stabilizing the Chantry after the events of the past year…”

The corner of Lavellan’s mouth twitched. Leliana supposed they must know the feeling.

“If that’s all.”

Giselle looked as though this conversation had gone exactly the way she’d expected, but she made no further arguments. She bowed her head respectfully – stiffly? watch out for her – and gave a quiet “Most Holy,” before turning and exiting the chamber.

“That won’t be the last of it.”

“I’d be surprised if it were.”

“The guy in this text has the weirdest-looking outfit I’ve ever seen on a human.”

“Let me see.”

Lavellan flipped the book around and shoved it under Leliana’s nose, holding it flat-handed under the spine. Ah. “Old designs from the Glory age. Imperial Andrastean sympathizers advocated indoctrinating male priests. Supposedly, the Divine rejected their proposal before it was finished. Historians like to chuckle over believing it was due to their robe designs, which were based on heavily modified versions of our own sisters’ wardrobes at the time… albeit less fashionable, as you can see.”

“Their priests wear this in Tevinter?”

“Not anymore.”

“But once?”

“I like to imagine so.”

Lavellan barked a laugh and shut the record-book. They hopped down from the table. “So you know what you’re going to say?”

“I have a gist.”

“Need me to shake anyone down, just let me know.”

“I doubt that will be necessary, though if you are looking for someone to discourage you from growling at some of my sisters of faith, I imagine you would have found a more diplomatic Divine in Josephine.”

“But _you’re_  unopposed to an elf growling at your holy court, or whatever?”

Leliana felt herself smiling despite her better judgment. “I’ll refrain from answering that, I think.”

Lavellan smirked and seemed satisfied. “I’ll get out of your hair, then. Haven’t been able to find anything that says I need to be there, but if you need me, holler. Andrastean historical politics are, as I’d suspected, even more boring in text when you’re living them.” At the door, they turned. “Good luck with the, uh, ceremony?”

“Thank you. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Leliana heard a snort from around the corner and, “Maybe, maybe not.”

“I  _hope_  to see you at dinner, then, if only to distract from the rest of the company that will undoubtably be present.”

“That’s more likely,” their voice called from down the hall now, fainter, with a laugh.

Leliana was already back to the books again, stacking them up for the night. She knew the procedures, the rituals, the speeches, had prepared for months. She wasn’t nervous about the ceremony.

“Unbelievable,” a quiet, familiar voice said from the door. “I leave you alone for a year and you become leader of the Andrastian faith behind my back.”

Maker. That voice. She’d almost expected it. Yet she can’t help but notice – the tone is light-hearted, quiet, like those nights by the campfire and –  _she’d missed it_  – 

She wanted to remember this, remember everything. She turned around.

The first thing she notices is a new scar on the left cheek down her jawbone, healing pink, the length of a finger, wider in the center (deeper? talon marks?). Then the hair, cut shorter than she knows – self-cut, likely with a knife, has she been away from civilization that long? – the traveling cloak covering the Warden insignia (hostile territory?), the thick hood to hide her pointed ears crumpled around her shoulders. The dark eyes, Maker, that smile –

but this conversation. She’d been expecting this. She –

– hasn’t been sure what to say when it came. She’s sorry? It escalated? It won’t come between them?

She’s going to change things. She’s going to do her best.

“Talaya.” It’s quieter than she means to say it. She’d meant to yell, cry, scream it out. She meant to move her legs and arms sooner in that direction. Instead everything seems… muted. Andraste’s Grace, it doesn’t seem real.

Surana reaches her first – fingers tug at that one strand of hair over her forehead, tucking it back with the rest behind her ear. “Hey.”

“ _Hey_ , yourself.”

“Mm,” and there’s a smile in that.

Where Talaya is verbally taciturn – Leliana doesn’t mind, she makes a living off of noticing things others won’t, gathering secrets, holding them close,  _never letting them go again_  – she makes up for in physical language, in touch and looks, in the little pieces of shared time.

The kiss – several – lasts for a long minute, a close one.  _Ma mie._ Their foreheads are together at the end, Leliana leaning slightly down, her hot skin warming up the cold.

“You seem unsurprised.” There are a dozen questions in that, but Leliana answers the most obvious:  _You expected me to find you first?_

“I am an accurate judge of character, as you know.”

“I should hope so, given your position with the Inquisition.”

It’s too quiet. This is everything she’d expected and none of it at the same time.  _She isn’t angry._ She’s never  _angry_ , really, but surely…

“Ma chérie.”

An eyebrow raised, amused. “I know that tone.”

“You have heard about my recent… promotion.”

Talaya was busy watching their fingers interlock, dark against pale skin. Leliana watched her face. Her bangs fell in a different way now, and the ends brushed her collarbone. She liked it. She wondered where she’d cut it, how far away from the nearest town, if she’d been lonely.

“You’ll be an exemplary Divine,” Surana says, so quiet, yet there are no barbed accusations to be found there at all. “I do not trust your Chantry. But.”

_But I trust you. But I know you’ll bring change. But I’ll share your faith, for this. But it’s us._

Leliana isn’t sure which she means to say; perhaps all of them at once. Perhaps she’s overthinking things. Perhaps none of them at all.

The last letter is heavy in her pocket. She remembers the last words with remarkable clarity, memorized the moment she’d lain her eyes on them:  _I will not be long._  And she was right, wasn’t she right, hadn’t she come through? Hadn’t her own fears grown, festered, and been disproven as easily as they’d come?

It’s her turn now. She will not take long.


End file.
